Controls on precipitation and cloudiness in simulations of trade‐wind cumulus as observed during RICO

By M. C. Vanzanten, Bjorn Stevens, L. Nuijens, A. P. Siebesma, A. Ackerman, F. Burnet, A. Cheng, Fleur Couvreux, Hongli Jiang, M. Khairoutdinov and 9 more. 2011

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Twelve large‐eddy simulations, with a wide range of microphysical representations, are compared to each other and to independent measurements. The measurements and the initial and forcing data for the simulations are taken from the undisturbed period of the Rain in Cumulus over the Ocean (RICO) field study. A regional downscaling of meteorological analyses is performed so as to provide forcing data consistent with the measurements. The ensemble average of the simulations plausibly reproduces many features of the observed clouds, including the vertical structure of cloud fraction, profiles of cloud and rain water, and to a lesser degree the population density of rain drops. The simulations do show considerable departures from one another in the representation of the cloud microphysical structure and the ensuant surface precipitation rates, increasingly so for the more simplified microphysical models. There is a robust tendency for simulations that develop rain to produce a shallower, somewhat more stable cloud layer. Relations between cloud cover and precipitation are ambiguous.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Earth-Surface Processes, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0b91ac3377d275cbbbac459edae9f15e0b04f2a9

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Citations in the corpus

Marine Boundary Layer Cloud Feedbacks in a Constant Relative Humidity Atmosphere (2012, background): “Not only is the RICO case the best observed trade wind cumulus case, but the behavior of large-eddy simulation has been extensively studied for this case (vanZanten et al. 2011; Matheou et al. 2011; Stevens and Seifert 2008) and it lends itself well to extensions that consider the role of precipitat”
On the Factors Modulating the Stratocumulus to Cumulus Transitions (2011, methodology): “…the latest version of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) LES (Stevens and Seifert 2008), which has been recently used for the Rain in Cumulus over the Ocean (RICO)– Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Cloud System Study (GCSS) intercomparison case (vanZanten et al. 2011).”
Confronting the Challenge of Modeling Cloud and Precipitation Microphysics (2020, methodology): “For instance, vanZanten et al. (2011) compared large eddy simulations of a precipitating shallow convection case using different bin and bulk schemes of varying complexity.”
Influence of grid aspect ratio on planetary boundary layer turbulence in large-eddy simulations (2015, methodology): “…wider horizontal range than the vertical range; this is true for the previous meteorological simulations as well: e.g., the domain size has 3 km2 of horizontal region and is 1 km high in Sullivan et al. (1994), and it has 12.8 km2 of75 horizontal region and is 4 km high in vanZanten et al. (2011).”